Pages

Search This Blog

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Erev Yom Kippur 5775

Erev Yom Kippur 5775

October 3, 2014

Rabbi Alan Cook

Sinai Temple, Champaign, IL

In early August, as rockets from Gaza were being fired
steadily into Israel, I saw a post on Facebook.A friend of a friend, living in Tel Aviv, had been forced to go into his
apartment building’s bomb shelter in the middle of the night.The man’s wife and daughter had been
mortified that he had worn a flimsy t-shirt and ratty black boxer shorts when
he knew they might encounter friends and neighbors, and so he was inquiring
(after-the-fact) about appropriate miklat-wear.Was his chosen outfit, he asked, appropriate
in the given situation?

The post was clearly only half-serious, intended to bring a
bit of levity to an extremely upsetting and tense situation.The man’s friends egged him on, urging him
to wear even skimpier clothing were he to find himself in a similar situation
in the future.Though I would not
comment myself, I did find myself getting more and more upset as I continued
thinking about the situation.No, I
determined, the outfit was not acceptable; no outfit is acceptable, for no
Israeli citizen should be expected to tolerate these ongoing attacks engineered
by the terrorists of Hamas who will not rest until they see Israel destroyed.

It’s unacceptable that in her 66 years of existence, Israel
has continually been drawn into defensive campaigns against its enemies at such
a great price that there is hardly a family among her eight million citizens
that has not been impacted in some way by a wartime casualty.

It’s unacceptable that when preschoolers and kindergartners
in Israel hear the words tzeva adom
they think not of the color red in their crayon boxes but of cowering with
their classmates in reinforced bunkers.

It’s unacceptable that the so-called “leadership” in Gaza has
spent money and energy stockpiling weapons, building underground tunnels designed
solely to facilitate deadly terror attacks on the civilian population of a
sovereign nation, leaving the citizens of Gaza to live in squalor and
insecurity while they rule by proxy from the comfort of a luxury suite in
Qatar.

It’s unacceptable that the media and the court of public
opinion deride Israel’s every move, trotting out anti-Semitic canards and
misplaced buzzwords like “genocide” and “apartheid.”

It’s unacceptable that the United Nations, established in the
hopes of creating a level playing field for all peoples and nations, continues
to isolate, marginalize, and condemn Israel, including twenty-one anti-Israel
resolutions during 2013, while countries such as China, Syria, and Iraq- rife
with violations of human rights and personal liberties- garner no such
attention.

I could go on and on, but you get the picture.Israel’s enemies and critics have become more
vociferous, and instead of reasoned critiques that might stem from disagreement
over the policies of the Netanyahu government, the legitimacy of her very
existence is being called into question.

Let me be clear: my heart breaks for the citizens of Gaza who
have been caught in the crossfire of this conflict.I feel great pain for their situation, and
mourn the innocent civilians who have been killed or injured.But unlike those who have chosen to be public
faces of the pro-Palestinian movement, such as Roger Waters and Desmond Tutu
and Javier Bardem; and those who have chosen to embrace the BDS movement, which
advocates boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against Israel, I know that I can
feel compassion toward Gazans without finding it necessary to tear down
Israel.

This spring, when I began to decide on my sermon topics for
the High Holidays, I knew that I wanted to give a sermon about Israel.I hoped that I would tell you about the
country’s beauty and its importance to our people throughout our history.I planned to invite you to come with me and
my family on our congregational trip this summer- a trip which I still strongly
encourage you to join.Perhaps I would
have touted the many technological innovations that Israel has introduced to
the world, or spoken about Israeli contributions in the fine arts.If I’d wanted to confront more difficult
issues, maybe I would have mentioned the struggle for Jewish pluralism and
women’s religious rights.Yet while I am
thankful that the truce seems to be holding and the rockets have stopped, at
least for the time being, I know I cannot give the Israel sermon I initially
sat down to write.

The purpose of a sermon or other public speech is to inform,
to educate, and perhaps to be persuasive enough to win over a listener to the
speaker’s point of view.In this case,
however, I know that the battle is not likely to
be won through skilled rhetoric. People are pretty steadfast in their positions
and have already chosen sides.

So the vast
majority of you have already formulated your opinions on Israel, and the
information I offer here in the next few moments probably will not garner
converts to a different point of view. Perhaps some of you will be upset
with me for choosing to speak about Israel this evening.Perhaps you question the connection between
Yom Kippur and Israel; perhaps you feel that American Jewry has its own issues
without coming involved in Israeli affairs; perhaps you have other reasons why
the mention of Israel elicits an uncomfortable response.After all, according to the Pew study on
Judaism, released last year, 30% of American Jews do not feel an attachment to
Israel, and up to 57% disagreed with the statement that Israel is an essential
part of Jewish life.[1]

But wherever your personal feelings on Israel may lie, I hope
that you will hear me out.For I believe
that Israel remains vitally important to the Jewish people, and that there is
much that the world can learn from her.

Much of the
media, particularly during this summer’s escalation, has tended to portray
Israel as the primary aggressor.But
throughout Israel’s existence, this has rarely- if ever- been the case.In 1948, Arab armies attacked just after
Israel’s declaration of independence, with the belief that they could destroy
the new state before it could ever gain a foothold.In 1967’s Six Day War, Israel did launch the
first formal strike, but that came only after Egypt’s President Nasser closed
the Straits of Tiran and Iraqi and Jordanian forces had amassed along the
Jordanian border.And on Yom Kippur 41
years ago, the Arab states launched attacks on Israel purposely timed to
coincide with the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.Similarly, this summer, Israel felt compelled
to respond when its citizens came under a constant barrage of rocket fire.Surely, we in C-U would not sit idle while
under constant attack from Gifford or Cerro Gordo.

Still, many writers
and pundits argue that Israel responded inappropriately.They use terms such as “disproportionate
force,” and point to the disparity between Israeli and Palestinian
casualties.Yair Lapid, Israel’s Finance
Minister, noted in a speech given in Germany back in August that Israel’s “moral test … is to continue to distinguish between enemies and
innocents…People sit in their comfortable homes, watching the evening
news, and tell us that we are failing the test.Why?Because in Gaza, people
suffer more.They don’t understand – or
don’t want to understand – that the suffering of Gaza is the main tool of
evil.When we explain to them, time after
time, that Hamas uses the children of Gaza as human shields, that Hamas intentionally
places them in the firing line to ensure that they die, that Hamas sacrifices
the lives of the young to win its propaganda war, people refuse to believe it.
Why? Because they cannot believe that human beings – human beings who look like
them and sound like them – are capable of behaving that way.Because good people always refuse to
recognize the totality of evil until it’s too late.”[2]

As Lapid notes,
we find that each side in this conflict emphasizes different priorities.Israel was able to greatly minimize the
number of deaths on its side thanks to tremendous infrastructure investments in
bomb shelters and in the Iron Dome missile defense system, both of which served
to insulate Israeli civilians from the attacks.The leadership in Gaza, on the other hand, elected to invest its money
in stockpiling weapons and building a network of tunnels into Israel, through
which they intended to kidnap, attack, maim, or kill Israelis.An estimated 600,000 tons of concrete were
diverted to build these tunnels at an estimated cost, in both parts and labor,
of nearly ninety million dollars.[3]Had this money been used instead to provide
opportunities for the citizens of Gaza—to fund education and infrastructure
projects, and to restore hope to a downtrodden community—this summer’s events
could have unfolded much differently.

Some will still
protest that Israel’s bombing raids unfairly targeted civilian areas.While there is believed to have been some
discrepancy in the reporting of Gazan casualties,[4] it is of course, extremely
lamentable that any loss of life was incurred during this summer’s
battles.But to suggest that the Israel
Defense Forces attacked haphazardly, that they sought to escalate the death
toll in any way, again distorts the reality of the situation.As has now been widely reported, and even
acknowledged by the United Nations (an institution that is frequently quite
critical of Israel), the IDF regularly provided advanced warnings of attacks in
an effort to allow civilians to clear the area.[5]That many chose to stay, heeding the urgings
of Hamas leadership, testifies to the mindset of the Hamas commanders.Their endgame has little to nothing to do
with freedom, self-determination, peace, and security for the citizens of
Gaza.They are driven instead by a
desire to maintain the struggle, for doing so keeps them in power, and bolsters
their image as heroes or martyrs.

Another argument
that is frequently heard regarding casualties in Gaza holds that since Gaza is
so densely populated, civilians had no place else to go.Gaza is indeed a small country, but as Alan
Dershowitz and others have noted,[6] there are open areas away
from population centers.Hamas fighters
chose not to do battle from these locations, and continually discouraged
civilians from fleeing to these locations.Instead, they repeatedly fired from civilian areas, including schools
and hospitals, which is not only a violation of international law, but is also
morally indefensible.

My outrage is directed
toward Hamas and its combatants.This is
not a group of intrepid freedom fighters engaged in civil disobedience in a
battle for self-determination, despite attempts of the media to portray them in
that light.Hamas is a terrorist
organization, designated as such by the European Union, the United States,
Canada, and several other countries.In
contrast, I do feel empathy for the citizens of Gaza.I pray that they will have the opportunity to
live in peace alongside their Israeli neighbors.I still cling to the belief that there can be
two states whose rulers recognize and respect the right of the other to
exist.And I hope that a resolution can
be found soon, so that our children, the children of Israel, and the children
of Palestine can be spared the pain and frustration of repeating the same
conversations.

So, somehow,
Hamas must be removed from the equation.And the world must understand that Israel’s struggles against Hamas are
not isolated battles to protect Israeli interests; they are part of the global
fight against terror.Though they may
bear different names and fight on different fronts, all of the groups who have
made headlines in the past year for kidnappings, beheadings, rapes, executions,
and other violent acts purportedly carried out in the name of Allah—all these
groups are essentially one and the same.Ignore the threat of Hamas—or of Hezbollah, which is strengthening its
presence in Lebanon—and we risk watching their counterparts in Islamic Jihad,
Boko Haram, and ISIS grow in strength and tenacity.As Prime Minister Netanyahu said on Monday in
his speech to the United Nations, “When militant Islam succeeds
anywhere, it’s emboldened everywhere. When it suffers a blow in one place, it’s
set back in every place.That’s why
Israel’s fight against Hamas is not just our fight. It’s your fight.”[7]Radicalized, jihadist Islam—a perverse
distortion of normative, moderate Muslim beliefs—represents an existential
threat to us all.

To me, Yom Kippur is a time to
look toward the future, to envision the change that we want to make in
ourselves and the difference we want to make in the world, and then to take the
necessary steps to bring those changes to fruition.As we improve our society and ourselves, we
renew hope and opportunity for future generations.

I want my children, and your
children, and all the children of earth to inherit a world of peace and
possibility, in which problems are solved not through violence but through
dialogue, in which the inherent worth of every individual is appreciated and
celebrated.In the world I dream of,
Israel will live in security with her neighbors, and terror will exist only in
ghost stories and Hollywood slasher films.This is my prayer for the people of Israel, this is my prayer for the
people of Gaza, this is my prayer for the whole world.

There are no easy answers to these
issues.Certainly, I’d encourage
continued support of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people.Buy Israeli goods, use Israeli technologies
(which are already relatively ubiquitous), or travel to Israel yourself.

Advocate and agitate for peaceful resolutions
to this ongoing conflict.As I
mentioned, I still hold out hope that a two-state solution can be possible, and
that democracy and cooperation can create a rapprochement in the Middle
East.This will require compromise on
both sides, which I believe should begin with a freeze on further Israeli
settlement construction, and a reconceptualization of the right of return for
Arab refugees.

We are B’nai Yisrael, the children
of Israel, descendants of the one who wrestled and struggled.We continue to struggle; we continue to
debate how best to engage with the land with whom we share a name and an
identity.May we continue to struggle,
may we continue to engage, until that day—may it come soon—when peace shall
prevail.

Oseh ha-shalom bimromav, Hu
ya’aseh shalom aleinu, v’al kol Yisrael, v’al kol yoshvei tevel, v’imru:
Amen.May the One Who makes peace in the
heavens, cause peace to descend upon us, upon Israel, and upon all who dwell on
earth, and let us say: Amen.